SAKLAS - The One Who Swallowed God - CD
Formed in 2017, SAKLAS hail from the ever-growing and always-interesting scene of Chile. But whereas many of their contemporaries tend toward death metal and thrash, SAKLAS' visions are grandiose black metal both classic and contemporary. They are the third band from Chile that PERSONAL has signed, but whereas the other two signings were death metal and death-doom, SAKLAS are undeniably black metal, equally recommended for those into the orthodox scene as well as its more dissonant modern variants - or, casting one's gaze into the past, '90s Dimmu Borgir and Sweden's Dawn.
To date, SAKLAS have released two demos and a digital-only live album, but at four songs and 40 minutes, The One Who Swallowed God is a mesmerizing and oft-overwhelming display of their powers. If the title track didn't already suggest the sound of their kaleidoscopic attack, then surely leadoff track "Mastering the Chaos Meditation" should: psychedelic cosmic horror bursting into brilliant colors but all emanating from BLACK. Indeed, SAKLAS seek to spread chaos and despair into reality, crashing through the gates of existence with a self-begotten, all-devouring view of that reality that stretches into eternity - an anticosmic mind leaden with eternal self-contemplation, with no beginning nor no end. Put in sonic terms, the trio take shards of the avant-garde and cut glass into the slimy & smooth underbelly of black metal's most enduring tropes, upholding traditions one minute and then defying them the next. It's an intensely dizzying, delirium-inducing experience that perhaps reaches its apotheosis with a surprise closing cover of Los Jaivas, one of Chile's most important psych/prog bands.
Forward-looking whilst looking back to yesteryear's vanguard, with The One Who Swallowed God do SAKLAS shake the cobwebs off old Dødheimsgard, Ved Buens Ende, Arcturus, and Maniac-era Mayhem. The past is alive - and present!
To date, SAKLAS have released two demos and a digital-only live album, but at four songs and 40 minutes, The One Who Swallowed God is a mesmerizing and oft-overwhelming display of their powers. If the title track didn't already suggest the sound of their kaleidoscopic attack, then surely leadoff track "Mastering the Chaos Meditation" should: psychedelic cosmic horror bursting into brilliant colors but all emanating from BLACK. Indeed, SAKLAS seek to spread chaos and despair into reality, crashing through the gates of existence with a self-begotten, all-devouring view of that reality that stretches into eternity - an anticosmic mind leaden with eternal self-contemplation, with no beginning nor no end. Put in sonic terms, the trio take shards of the avant-garde and cut glass into the slimy & smooth underbelly of black metal's most enduring tropes, upholding traditions one minute and then defying them the next. It's an intensely dizzying, delirium-inducing experience that perhaps reaches its apotheosis with a surprise closing cover of Los Jaivas, one of Chile's most important psych/prog bands.
Forward-looking whilst looking back to yesteryear's vanguard, with The One Who Swallowed God do SAKLAS shake the cobwebs off old Dødheimsgard, Ved Buens Ende, Arcturus, and Maniac-era Mayhem. The past is alive - and present!